Obama is Overwhelmed at the Amount of Work it is Being President

  There were people who claimed that President Obama was not ready to be president and there were people who claimed that Obama didn’t know what he was getting himself into and according to this article that may indeed be the case.

  President Obama is tired, too tired in fact to properly meet the Prime Minister of Britain. So tired in fact that he didn’t look into the fact that Gordon Brown was going blind before he gave him a DVD set as a gift. (A gaffe that the media would have found inexcusable under the Bush administration.)

They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister

  But there are more important issues than that, more issues in fact than the new president is able to handle apparently.

illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president’s surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.

  He is surprised at how much work it is to be president. What did he think the job was all about? Did he really think just his presence, or the presence of anyone other than Bush, really was going to make everything okay? He is surprised that he really has to work for a living?

  Here is what one Washington insider had to say:

The American source said: “Obama is overwhelmed. There is a zero sum tension between his ability to attend to the economic issues and his ability to be a proactive sculptor of the national security agenda.

  Obama is overwhelmed, he can’t work on the economy and national security at the same time, that makes you feel secure doesn’t it. But it was candidate Obama who chided McCain for suspending his campaign and flying back to Washington when this economic meltdown swung into full gear by saying “a president needs to multitask.” Did he think that that was just a campaign line? Did he think there was really no truth to that line, it was just a chance to stick it to McCain? President Obama’s idea of multi-tasking is saying one thing while doing the opposite.

  I wrote earlier that there are more important issues than the president’s snub of Gordon Brown, but foreign policy is a pretty damn important issue and while Obama claims that he will reconcile with portions of the Taliban as part of his plan in Afghanistan, and he gives his first television interview as president in the middle east, he also proceeds to alienate our biggest ally in their first meeting. So maybe I was a little too dismissive earlier especially when you see a Washington insider say the following:

A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama’s inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to “even fake an interest in foreign policy”.

  We need to cut President Obama a little slack, after all he is tired. While Iran and North Korea are flexing their muscles the president needs some rest, he is too tired to worry about those two countries right now. (They are just little countries anyway, right Mr. President?)

  He is tired and overwhelmed and he is not even two months into his term, he better get some rest soon or it is going to be a long four years for him. And us.